Indiana - By The Numbers Recap

This might be their best team in many years (I've followed IU since the 80's), but the schedule does Indiana no favors: they miss MSU and Minnesota, and the structure of the schedule is poor. They host OSU this weekend, which they will lose. Then, after a game at Virginia, comes the easiest part of the schedule: Illinois, @NU. I think they split those, but there's a chance the Hoosiers get both.

Then @Iowa (loss), Wisco (probably a loss), @Penn State (almost surely a loss), and they finish at home in the Bucket game against Purdue, which appears to be a tossup.

In short, there are three tossups: Illinois, NU, and Purdue. They will be favored in one or two of those. There are three really longshot possibilities: OSU, @Iowa, and @Penn State. Wisconsin might be a game they can steal. 4-4 is possible for IU in the same way 8-0 is possible for Michigan - it could technically happen, but no. 3-5 is the best-case realistic scenario, and 2-6 would not represent a collapse. But if they go 4-0 out of conference (A real possibility, as their remaining opponent, Virginia, looks awful) that bowl season is definitely a possibility.

I wish they were playing MSU in place of OSU or PSU though.

Preview coming on Friday

I don't use a straight formula, I use smoothed data from all 2008 games of FBS vs FBS opponents. I have a wealth of data and still trying to find the best way to present it and present the value, very open to any ideas. Here is what I used to get to 30-27.

Drive Offense Scrimmage Start Expected Points
1 Indi 20 1.59
2 Mich 39 2.21
3 Indi 14 1.31
4 Mich 29 1.8
5 Indi 60 3.18
6 Mich 7 1.18
7 Indi 33 1.98
8 Mich 38 2.18
9 Indi 24 1.69
10 Mich 19 1.55
11 Indi 41 2.28
12 Mich 30 1.82
13 Indi 71 3.88
14 Mich 30 1.82
15 Indi 42 2.32
16 Mich 19 1.4
17 Indi 69 3.07
19 Mich 49 2.62
20 Indi 2 0.97
21 Mich 40 2.25
22 Indi 13 1.42
23 Mich 29 1.8
24 Indi 24 1.69
25 Mich 25 1.71
26 Indi 15 1.46
27 Mich 26 1.73
28 Indi 24 1.69
29 Mich 48 2.58
30 Indi 26 1.73

I have gone back and forth on some of these issues myself. I can easily include anything that's currently excluded (primarily sacks for QBs, fumbles lost and non-receptions for receivers). I do track the target vs catch for receivers and am toying with a metric for evaluation, something like gap percent which shows all targets/all catches to determine how effectively utilized a receiver is. I will add this into future updates. The other difficulty on this is that all I have is NCAA play by play data and there seems to be some discrepancy from team to team on how targets are recorded, drops and such should always be counted but if the receiver is noted on a throwaway, that shouldn't count against him. Ultimately, a UFR style video review would be great, but with 120 teams, its just not possible.

For QBs, I agree that some value is due to the QB for sacks, but my view is that in general, the majority falls into the offense in total. Therefore, sacks count in team passing stats, but not individuals.